Smoking Kills
by The Conquistador
Summary: Sometimes, in not trying to do a thing, we accomplish it. KibaIno


Author's Note: A Christmas Present for The Infamous Jack. :) I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I wouldn't be giving a short story to my friend as a present.

It took Ino three years to get Asuma to stop smoking. Three years of hiding his cigarettes, practicing her stealth by sneaking the cigarettes out of his pockets, and, once, out of his mouth. Asuma had hid the cigarettes, but Ino always found them. She was nothing if not persistent. She'd even gotten Sakura in on it, towards the end, by having the medic-nin deliver almost daily lectures to Asuma about the dangers of smoking and how bad his lungs must look. She'd tried to talk Hinata into corroborating the lectures with her byakugan, but the Hyuuga had been too shy… oh well.

When Asuma hadn't smoked for a month, then and only then did Ino relax her constant vigilance. Of course, she'd made all the vendors in town swear, looking quite frightened as they did, that they would under no circumstances sell cigarettes to Asuma… or **else**. Shikamaru had helped with that one. It was so much easier when they didn't run away! But after Asuma had stopped smoking, and didn't look like he was going to start again, and Ino had decided that it wasn't worth it to try and get Chouji to stop snacking so much, or Shikamaru to stop being so damn lazy (Temari was doing a pretty good job of that anyway), Ino found herself… well, almost bored.

Of course, she was a successful kunoichi, worked in her parents' flower shop and had plenty of training she could occupy her time with. But none of that made up for not having someone to harass… er, help. So when she saw Inuzuka Kiba strolling casually past her flower ship, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and leaking smoke into the air…

Kiba was even more resourceful than Asuma had been. He was very good at finding the cigarettes, just from the smell. Burning them didn't work so well because, as Sakura had told Asuma over and over, second hand smoke kills. But no matter what else she did with the packs, Kiba found them! Ino finally took to selling the unopened packages back to the stores, and tossing the rest into buckets of waters, unusually large puddles, or any other decent water source she could fine.

And then there was Akamaru, helpful because Ino couldn't watch both Kiba and his ninken at the same time. When she watched Akamaru, Kiba snuck into shops and coerced storekeepers into selling him cigarettes. When she watched Kiba, Akamaru would sneak the cigarettes to him. Ino couldn't figure out exactly where they came from, but she suspected there was some sort of drug cartel within the Inuzuka where Akamaru got his supplies. Kiba denied this vehemently, of course, but he wasn't exactly objective.

Ino spent most of her time stalking… er, following, the Inuzuka. He didn't seem to mind too much, except for when she followed him on his first, already awkward date with Hinata… who hadn't been very happy that Ino was sitting two tables over, alternately watching at Kiba and flirting with her waiter, as Kiba had told Ino quite vehemently the next day. Although, Ino noticed that Kiba kept glancing at her, and his nose would wrinkle ever so slightly as a dopey smile crossed his face. She wore that perfume every day after that. She hadn't been so happy that Kiba's hands were twitching every so often, and he was trying vainly to light a cigarette that wasn't there.

Ino had successfully kept him away from cigarettes for two weeks when he was called on a month long mission to Wind Country. When he came back, it was like he'd never stopped… and Ino decided drastic measures were necessary. Wearing her sexiest little black dress, she asked Kiba on a date. He was suspicious, but seemed happy enough, and accepted. Over the course of the night, he seemed more and more cheerful, and Ino found, to her surprise, that he was much more fun than her current boyfriend. He even gave her a bottle of nice perfume at the start of the date, the exact same one she'd been wearing ever since his date with Hinata.

Then, when they were sitting comfortably on a bench in the park, Kiba idly tossing sticks to Akamaru, Ino pulled out the chloroform. One sniff was more than enough to knock Kiba out. Ino dragged him to a torture/interrogation room she'd 'borrowed' from Ibiki, and kept him there for a week straight without a single cigarette, nicotine patch, or anything else related to smoking. Sure, Kiba hadn't been very happy… but, after a few days, it seemed like it was more because Ino was keeping him cooped up than because she wasn't letting him smoke… and he always perked up when she came to sit with him.

Then, as they were eating lunch in his cell on the last day of his imprisonment, Kiba kissed her. Ino promptly pushed him away. "You still taste like cigarettes." She said, tossing her short locks.

Kiba never smoked again.


End file.
